food for lovers. of food.

october roundup

I have been busy, dudes! Therefore, I haven’t been posting as much as I’ve just been composing posts in my head and then not writing them down. That all changes today. Lets get started.

What do you get when you combine this:

neon yumminess.

With this?:

cooking in the dark.

The answer is: something amazing. Up top there you see a bowl of roasted butternut squash. Which is super easy, by the way.

8 total minutes of effort.

Just cut them in half (ok, I actually do fourths because it’s easier and I am in less danger of hacking my arm off), scoop out the seeds, brush with olive oil, then place flesh side down on a baking sheet in a 400F oven and forget about them for awhile. Once they’re cool enough to handle, you can just scoop the flesh away from the skin (gross sounding). Then you have all this awesome orange goop to do with what you will. I, for instance, pureed it with a ton of cashews and some veggie broth. The idea came from a really old post from VeganYumYum. That recipe is amazing, by the way. But i didn’t have enough delicata squash, so I used butternut. And I didn’t feel like soup, I feel like creamy rice. And I had some leeks. I don’t know, I just improvised, ok?

loving that rice cooker.

So I used the saute function of my rice cooker and sautéed the leeks and some garlic, then added the rice and let it cook until it was done. Meanwhile, I made a bunch of cashew puree, via that recipe link, except wayyyyy too much of it. Then I pureed it and the squash with my immersion blender (it wouldn’t all fit into my regular blender). Finally, once the rice was done, I combined about half of the puree with the rice (froze the rest for some future endeavor). It’s amazing! It’s like risotto, but without all that stupid stirring! It’s…fauxsotto!

and it photographs very badly!

Ok, even though this was really easy to make, it took forever because squash takes a while to cook, and rice takes infinity to cook, so it was dark by the time I got finished and the photos of it suck. That doesn’t change the fact that it was the most delicious thing I’ve made all year. I served it up with some vinegary kale and some plain salt and pepper baked tofu. I think I might use the rest of the squash puree to make either a pasta sauce or quesadillas. You’ll see it again soon, I promise you that much.

Moving on.

lovely.

Alright, I know someone recently schooled me in the comments about whether these were snow pease or sugar snaps, but I can’t be bothered to look it up right now (I need to get this done before work, folks!), so we’ll just call them snow peas and hope I’m guessing correctly. If you guys couldn’t tell, I really love Asian cuisine. Of all sorts. I make it a lot at home because it’s pretty easy and always delicious. This came together in a matter of minutes.

haha, shiitakes.

(The PPK has ruined the word shiitake for me.) Anywho, I cooked up some sliced shiitakes with garlic and a couple of super hot chilis, then added the snow peas and some canned baby corn that’s been hiding in my cupboard for about a million years.

fresh and clean.

I added a touch of some jarred teriyaki sauce, some lime juice, combined it all with soba noodles and topped with sliced scallions. Perfection!

soup weather has arrived.

Well, sometimes. We’ve gotten to that point in October where every other day it’s still almost 80 degrees (so. sick. of. it.). Or, it will be 50. Either way, it still gets chilly in the evenings and soup is a nice thing for me to tote along to work for a break from eating pizza and calzones all the time. I actually just finished the leftovers of this one, although I suspect it’s an 80 degree day out there. Watch me wear a tshirt out and then freeze all night. Oh, so that gloppy looking stuff is this soup I had concocted in my head and was determined to make and although it was pretty good, it wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be, but that’s 100% my own fault.

The base is roasted potatoes, turnips, and yams pureed with not-chicken broth and almond milk. I added to it sautéed mushrooms, brussels sprouts, and garlic. It would have been fine, but I forgot about it on the stove for 10 minutes and it somehow boiled on the lowest setting, thus breaking the soup and adding far too much brussels sprouts flavor (it became a little bitter, and thus needed a lot of added salt to counter). Not horrible, but nothing I’d share with anyone else. Still, a really awesome idea that I might try again. The turnips add a really lovely twist on the basic potato soup base.

Ok, two more tiny things that I just need to add before I forget about them and they get lost in my food porn files forever.

strangely delicious!

I don’t know if you could tell from any of my posts, but I like to throw my taste buds for a loop every now and again. When I saw this recipe in 500 Vegan Recipes, I just had to try it. It’s the Asian macaroni salad (might be called something slightly different, but allow me to flub a bit since I’m running low on posting time). I followed it to a T, except that I used whole wheat rotini instead of elbow mac. It was really, surprisingly good. And spicy! I do love the spice. You should all try it. Because you know you still eat pasta salad even though it’s not summertime anymore.

interesting bite.

Speaking of fun flavor combinations, here’s one. I know I’ve mentioned my weird and thrown-together salads before. Well, this one included raspberries, pecans, and green olives. Oh, and bacon bits, sprouts, and apples. It’s amazing how you can just throw a bunch of random stuff from the fridge into a salad, pour on some delicious salad dressing (I love Briannas Poppyseed dressing!), and munch happily away. This is my encouragement to you to try something a little different. You never know how it might turn out.

WordPress spellcheck fun: Really, it should just expand its horizons a little bit. Sheesh.

squeeeeeeee for the yummiest fauxsotto evah! all the stirring of a traditional risotto makes me sadfaced as well, but i loooove what you did. i knew i could count on you to make me remember leeks and how gloriously good they are, Jessica. i don’t know why, but i almost always forget about ’em and i need not to. although lately i’ve been remembering/rediscovering shallots – oooh, i love those little buggers. turnips in soup = the best, and i really like that you added some lime into your asian shiitake (yay ppk!) awesomeness. a good sugar snap vs. snow peas difference is that snow peas are flatter. it’s been warm during the day and then like 40’s & 50’s here at night. i wish it would level out, but we’re getting into the soups and other comfort foodz, too. so yum! also, i need to get my ass into gear and ask for 500 Vegan Recipes for xmas or somethin’. have heard nothing but good about Celine & Joni’s book. oh yeah, backtracking – s&p baked tofu is my fav. damn simple and damn delicious! yay!

Oh my dog everything looks so damn delicious that I’m hungry now! 500 Vegan Recipes is so great – I am biased of course because I was a tester, but there is everything you need in there for reals! I love it!

I know what you mean about the temps – it’s like that here right now – make up your mind mother nature!!!

I love that photo of the fork. The idea of butternut squash + cashews is really appealing to me right now considering that I have about 2 lbs of roasted squash sitting in my fridge waiting to be made into something. I was thinking soup, but some toasted cashews might add a nice crunch! Thanks for the inspiration!

i was trying to think of something you could think of to remember which pea is which…all i could think of was:
sugar peas are fat b/c of all the sugar. or something?
yeah, that’s the best i could come up with…